Collaborating toward Better IT Accessibility (236682483)

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Collaborating Toward Better

IT Accessibility

Kara Zirkle, IT Accessibility

CoordinatorAssistive Technology Initiative Office

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Roles and Responsibilities

Roles

• CIO

• Deans and Directors

•Managers

• Developers

• Content Managers

• Instructional Designers

•Library

• Admin Staff

• Teaching Faculty

Responsibilities

• What “tools” do you

have in your tool belt

that help buildaccessibility into

responsibilities you may

already have?

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Areas of Accessibility in Higher

Education

• Web Compliance – Ex: NC State Global Accessibility Awareness Day Website

Challenge 

• Policy – Ex: Example policies in higher education 

• Procurement – Ex: George Mason University Procurement – ASC Review

Board 

• Training/Awareness – Ex: University of Wisconsin-Madison Web Accessibility 101 

• Buy-In – Ex: Are you the next example?

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Web Compliance

• Accessibility of

websites

• Content

• Documents

• Videos

• Applications

• E-learning

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Policy

Do you sign off onpolicy?

Do you help writepolicy?

What current policiesapply to you?

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Training and Awareness

If you’d askcoworkers what

accessibilitymeant, how

many differentanswers would

you hear?

When we shareknowledge – we

can all have abetter

understanding

of accessibility.

What doesaccessibility

mean to

you?

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Buy-In

   H

   i   g    h   L   e   v   e    l   S   u

   p   p   o   r   t

Communication

ConsistentLanguage

AccessibilitySupport

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Scenario

• Allegations:

Inaccessibility of Web

content and services

(class assignments, livechat and discussion

board, videos without

captions, and an

inaccessible registrationsystem)

• Issues:Students were

frustrated by lack of

progress after 5 years,

the impact of these

accessibility barriers on

their learning &

resulting delays ingraduation.

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Lessons Learned?

• Identify barriers and prepare plans before

EIT adoption.

• Accessibility can’t be automated – effective

accessibility solutions require human judgment and involvement.

• Staff/faculty need training and services to

select, author, and deliver content.

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Is this something that could really

happen?

• In May 2012, theAlliance for Disabilityand Students at theUniversity of Montana

filed a complaint withthe U.S. Department ofEducation’s Office forCivil Rights, citingvarious problems of

accessibility oncampus for studentswith disabilities.

• The Universitysubmitted a resolutionagreement to the OCRin March 2014 which

confirms the problemsit needs to furtheraddress. Part of theUniversity’s resolutionagreement is a self-

study examining howaccessible onlinematerial is to studentswith disabilities.

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Any Volunteers?

• Name off 3

responsibilities you

have within yourrole.

• Identify where

accessibility might

fall into theseresponsibilities.

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Thank you for attending!

• Kara Zirkle, IT Accessibility Coordinator

Assistive Technology Initiative Office

George Mason University• Email: [email protected] 

• Web: http://ati.gmu.edu 

• Twitter: @AccessibleMason